The senior Islamic State strategist Abu Muhammad al-Adnani was killed in northern Syria, the group announced Tuesday, signaling the death of one of the world’s most-wanted terrorists.
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Al-Adnani, the organization’s leader in Syria, was killed “while surveying the operations to repel the military campaigns against Aleppo”, Daesh’s Amaq news agency reports.
Today coalition forces conducted a precision strike near Al Bab, Syria, targeting Abu Muhammad Al-Adnani, one of ISIL’s most senior leaders. The official stopped short of confirming Adnani’s death, however.
Adnani’s death came as Kurdish-backed militias in northern Syria agreed to a United States initiative to stop fighting Turkish forces, whose week-old incursion in the country has stoked tensions between Washington and Ankara.
More details to follow.
“If you can kill a disbelieving American or European – especially the spiteful and filthy French – or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that joined a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way however it may be”, al-Adnani said in 2014.
Cook described Adnani as the “principal architect of ISIL’s external operations” and “ISIL’s chief spokesman”.
Adnani had coordinated the movement of ISIS fighters, directly encouraged lone-wolf attacks on civilians and members of the military and actively recruited new members, the Pentagon spokesperson said.
Advances by Iraq’s army and allied militia toward Islamic State’s most important possession of Mosul have put the group under new pressure at a moment when a USA -backed coalition has cut its Syrian holdings off from the Turkish border. Islamic State holds territory in the province of Aleppo, but not in the city where rebels are fighting Syrian government forces.
Among senior Islamic State officials killed in air strikes this year are Abu Ali al-Anbari, Baghdadi’s formal deputy, and the group’s “minister of war”, Abu Omar al-Shishani.
According to a United Nations dossier, Adnani had been an active member of ISIL’s precursor group, the Islamic State of Iraq, since 2003.
There were conflicting reports earlier on Tuesday as to where and how Adnani died.
In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said authorities were “still assessing the results of the strike”.
Aymenn Jawad Tamimi, an expert on jihadist groups, said his death was “significant symbolically and in pointing to the wider decline of the Islamic State”.
Al-Adnani had a $5 million bounty on his head from the US State Department and was believed to be the likely successor to Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
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The U.S.is supporting moderate rebel forces in Syria.
